142 TIIE ORCHARD. [Feb. 



On Root -pruning. 



When a tree has stood so long that the leading roots have enter- 

 ed into the under strata, they are apt to draw a crude fluid, which 

 the organs of the most delicate fruit trees cannot convert into such 

 balsamic juices as to produce fine fruit. To prevent this evil, as 

 soon as a valuable tree begins to show a sickly pinkiness upon the 

 leaves, or the fruit inclining to ripeness before it has acquired its 

 full growth, at the same time the bark becoming dry, hard, and 

 disposed to crack, let the ground, as soon in the spring as the frost 

 is out of it, be opened for three or four feet round the tree, and 

 with a chisel cut close to the horizontal roots every one that you 

 find in the least tending downward. Should there be any mouldy 

 appearance or rottenness among the roots, cut such out effectually, 

 and wash the others clean with a weak lye or soap suds. If the 

 ground be wet place a few fiat stones under the places where you 

 cut off the descending roots, to prevent the young roots which may 

 be produced again from about the cuts taking a perpendicular 

 direction, and to give them a lateral inclination. 



As the roots invariably collect the sap from the extreme points, 

 this cutting compels the horizontal ones to work and exert them- 

 selves, and if there be any energy left, they will soon throw out 

 fresh fibres, and thus collect a more congenial sap for the support 

 of the tree and fruit. At the same time, in the filling in of the 

 earth, add a quantity of good rotten manure, and cover the ground 

 thinly over with the same, as far as the roots may be supposed to 

 extend; wash the stem and branches with soap-suds, or if any 

 worms are perceivable, with the mercurial or corrosive solution, 

 and water the ground round the tree at intervals in very dry 

 weather, till you perceive it pushing vigorously. 



There is not a more powerful agent for producing the canker and 

 other disorders than these descending roots. Canker indeed may 

 arise from an improper soil, a vitiated sap, animalcule, and the 

 want of free circulation of the fluids: the last is often caused by in- 

 judiciously shortening too many of the leading branches. The 

 medication before recommended, will stop the progress of the evil 

 on the parts to which it is applied; but the canker may again break 

 out on the other parts of the same tree, and that arises very fre- 

 quently from the roots striking into a cold and unfriendly soil. 



The fluids being once vitiated by any subterraneous cause, canker 

 is not the only evil; insects are invited thereby to deposit their eggs 

 in the bark, which in due time become crawling maggots; these 

 feed on the sap of the trees, devouring the inner bark and rind as 

 they proceed, until the period of their chrysalis; which having un- 

 dergone, they take wing and fly off, and in their progress seldom 

 fail to lay the foundation o! similar mischief. 



From this may be inferred the necessity of making a judicious 

 choice of proper ground for your fruit trees, and paying due atten- 

 tion to their cultivation and health; lor it is quite as presumable, if 

 not moii' so, that the vitiated juices of the trees invite the worms, 

 than that they are the original cause which produces it. 



When any of your fruit trees are growing extremely luxuriant, 



